Evaluating Rural Electrification Projects - Methodological Approaches

In recent years, the international community has expanded efforts in programme evaluation to improve the accountability of development projects. This paper presents approaches to implementing state-of-the-art evaluations in rural electrification projects, taking into account specific challenges that researchers face in such interventions. Furthermore, it suggests a particular approach to assess impacts before an intervention is implemented by surveying the yet non-electrified target region of the project and, in addition, an already electrified region. Besides delivering robust evidence on impacts, results from such ex-ante evaluations provide insights for the project design, thereby reducing the gap between evaluation researchers and practitioners.Impact evaluation, ex-ante impact assessment, electricity access, rural development

Combating Deforestation? - Impacts of Improved Stove Dissemination on Charcoal Consumption in Urban Senegal

The dissemination of improved cooking stoves (ICS) is frequently considered an effective instrument to combat deforestation. This paper evaluates the impacts of an ICS dissemination project in urban Senegal implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Agency for International Cooperation, or GIZ). Based on a survey among 624 households, we examine the effects of the intervention on charcoal consumption. Given a complex cooking behavior in urban Africa with simultaneous usage of different fuel and stove types, the virtue of our data set is that it provides for detailed information on individual stoves and meals. This allows for estimating charcoal savings by accounting for both household characteristics and meal specific cooking patterns. On average, households using an ICS save around 25 percent of charcoal per stove utilization. In total, around 6.1 to 6.9 percent of the Dakar charcoal consumption is saved due to the ICS dissemination project. --Impact evaluation,deforestation,energy access,Africa,Senegal

Rural Electrification and Fertility – Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire

Using household-level survey data from Côte d’Ivoire, this paper investigates the determinants of fertility with a particular focus on the effect of electrification. Based on count data regression models, our analysis suggests a highly significant relationship between fertility and electricity, but one that is only revealed when the model distinguishes between rural and urban areas. Specifically, we find a positive association between electricity and fertility for urban households, contrasted by a negative relationship for rural households. This dichotomy is suggested to reflect the influences of electricity in facilitating child care, off set by its modernizing impacts through the provision of information.Rural development; energy access; demography; count data

Biodiesel: A New Oildorado?

Guaranteeing tax reductions and exemptions, the European governments intend to increase the share of biofuels in total EU fuel consumption to 5.75% by 2010. The financial support of this EU objective is frequently justified by expected positive environmental impacts, most notably the mitigation of climate change, and by favorable employment effects in the agricultural sector. This paper investigates the environmental and economic implications of the support of rapeseed-based biodiesel as a substitute for fossil diesel.Based on a survey of recent empirical studies, we find that the energy and greenhouse gas balances of this environmental strategy are clearly positive.Yet, its overall environmental balance is currently far from being unequivocally positive. Most importantly, biodiesel is not a cost-efficient emission abatement strategy.Thus, for the abatement of greenhouse gases,we recommend more efficient alternatives based on both renewable and conventional technologies.Renewable Energy, Environmental Policy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions